Jelly Roll Morton Died
July 10, 1941
Are you a jazz fan? You might be if you heard a recording by Jelly Roll Morton. He died on July 10, 1941, but his music still makes you want to get up and dance. If you've listened to ragtime or watched old black-and-white cartoons, you have an idea of the kind of music Jelly Roll Morton wrote and played.

In the 1920s, Jelly Roll Morton rose to fame with his band, the Red Hot Peppers. Morton was a great pianist and generally acknowledged as one of the first orchestral jazz composers. He even claimed to have invented jazz. That boast brought him a lot of enemies in the music world. Whether or not you agree with his claim, Morton made some serious changes to the way jazz was played. Can you think what those changes might be?